My Sister Is Moving

My sister, her husband and their one-year-old girl who have been living in San Francisco are all moving to Canada (Victoria on Vancouver Island) in October. It has been an extremely busy week as I have spent a lot of time helping them get packed for the move. Some observations that are pretty obvious, but which we ran into while I was helping out:

If you haven’t used something in the last 3 months, throw it out.

If you aren’t sure whether or not you need something, throw it out.

Having all the supplies you need saves a lot of time and trips to the local stores.

It’s best to concentrate on a single room rather than trying to pack multiple rooms at the same time.

Lots of newspaper is essential

The cool thing about San Francisco is that the city is a living Freecycle environment so there wasn’t a whole lot of trash. Anything that they decided that they didn’t need we simply took outside their apartment and left it on the sidewalk. It was always gone within a few hours.

The move isn’t a surprise. Housing costs are still outrageous (one of the reasons I’ll be moving soon too) out here and unless you need to be here for your job, there really is no reason to pay the prices that housing costs.

I can’t wait to go and visit her in Canada (I may be driving their car up there for them) as I hear Victoria is absolutely beautiful. It will also give me a chance to look at places in Washington and Oregon for possible good places for me to relocate.

Spent a few days there a couple years ago! Great place to visit:
Downtown Victoria has great pubs.
The raft trips are great for viewing whales.
There is an excellent “gardens” area just outside of town.
If we had more time, we would have driven further north near the coastlines. Supposed to be a number of good bed & breakfast places.
Have fun!

being someone so personal finance savvy, I wouldn’t have expected you to say if you dont need it, throw it out. I have known people like that, and none of them have ever been very good at managing their finances in my opinion.. I would say, if its worth something, and you haven’t used it on 3 months, sell it on ebay. Or, have a garage sale. I’ve made hundreds of dollars from garage sales containing things that many people would just condemn to the landfill. Hell, if you dont have time for any of that, cart it over to the pawn shop.

“throw it out” is used to mean get rid of in the above post – as can be seen later, all the items were given away and not banished to the dump. What you need for the above is time, something that my sister didn’t have. It is one more example of how organization and time management can end up saving you a lot of money.

None of the above were viable choices under the circumstances, so it was either pack (and add weight to the cost of shipping) or place it on the sidewalk for someone else to claim.

Probably the best option would have been to take them to a charity and get a tax deduction for all of them, but that wasn’t going to actually help their finances since they don’t own a home and don’t end up itemizing their tax return.

I’m a Canadian, born and raised. I grew up on Quadra Island, which is an island with a population of about 3000 a 3-4 hour drive North of Victoria, but while I was going to College I lived in Victoria for several years.

It’s a great place! Small though, the Downtown area can be seen in a day, but there’s lots of tiny shops hidden in alley ways all over the place.

If you enjoy beer you should check out The Swans Pub – a brewery and pub, the best beer in the whole city, and reasonably priced. It’s right along the waterfront as well, although a little ways away from where the tourists tend to roam.